Battlefields
by Novindalf
Summary: 'After all, what is childbirth if not a woman's field of battle' Ficlet in the same -verse as my multi-chapter fic Sleeves Stained Red (where Catelyn marries Tywin Lannister in an AU post-RW scenario).


**Characters:** Catelyn Stark, Tywin Lannister, Sansa Stark, Jaime Lannister, Arya Stark, Brienne of Tarth; Catelyn/Tywin, slight Jaime/Sansa

**Summary:** _After all, what is childbirth if not a woman's field of battle?_ Ficlet in the same -verse as my multi-chapter fic _Sleeves Stained Red_ (where Catelyn marries Tywin Lannister in an AU post-RW scenario).

* * *

**Battlefields**

Catelyn knows this birth will not be easy. The maester pats her hand and assures her all is well, but she's born five children before; she knows when something is wrong. _The babe needs turning_, the septas whisper in tones they think she cannot hear, and then mutter feverish prayers to the Mother, the Crone, even the Warrior. After all, what is childbirth if not a woman's field of battle?

Sansa holds her hand throughout, trembling as her mother grows weaker and her grip looser, but she says nothing of her fears. She does not need to; Catelyn's pallor tells her enough, and the blood staining the bed-linens tells her the rest.

:::

Hours later a low, feeble cry is interrupted by a loud, startled one, and Catelyn Lannister's daughter rushes out in a surge of blood and gore. Septas, maids and midwives alike flock to tend to the babe, but still the maester struggles on, desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood between the lady's legs.

Catelyn's eyelids barely flutter, though her near-silent moans still pierce through her daughter. When the maester withdraws Sansa thinks this is it, but he shakes his head slowly. "I am sorry," he says quietly, "there is nothing more I can do. She is in the hands of the gods now."

Sansa tries to hold back her tears for the sake of her lady mother, but when Jaime Lannister enters the chamber and envelops her in a gentle embrace, all she can do is bury her face in his shoulder and weep. Though she has long since lost the strength to lift her arms, Catelyn longs to be in the Kingslayer's place.

:::

Daylight arrives as a red glow behind Catelyn's eyelids and leaves in the same fashion once, twice, seven times. Despite the sound of surging blood in her ears she hears murmurs that it is a miracle that she has lasted so long, that surely it must be today, that the wild girl has been spotted again at the southern gate.

"Arya!" Catelyn tries to call, although she knows it is impossible, and anyway she hasn't been able to speak for days. Her closed eyes close and she fades once more into darkness.

Beside the bed, the two septas look at each other in disbelief as the word dies on Lady Lannister's lips.

:::

She wakes with a feeble moan and just about feels Sansa clutching her frail hand gently. Someone had been talking again in the night about the wild girl; this last night she'd been caught trying to sneak into the castle itself, and been beaten back on pain of death by Lannister guardsmen.

Catelyn is surer than ever. "Arya," she whispers, her hand twitching in Sansa's as she implores her eldest daughter to understand.

Tears spring to Sansa's eyes and she squeezes back ever so gently. "No, mother," she says, her voice small at the thought that her mother has forgotten her. "It's me, Sansa."

Catelyn rolls her head labouredly to face the window, as near to a shake as she can manage, and looks out to the skies that will house her daughter in darkness. "Arya," she whispers once more, and prays for her little girl lost in the night.

:::

Towards the dawn Catelyn is struck by a fever. Maesters and septas and maids flurry about the chamber, tending and tutting just as they did at the birth not two week past, and once more Sansa clings to her mother's hand and prays to the gods to spare her. Catelyn is weak still, and now also what the master calls delirious, murmuring imploringly about Arya and wild girls and southern gates.

Sansa's head snaps up and she looks sharply around the room until she catches sight of the two septas who had been nattering the other night. One of them nods at the sight of Sansa's questioning frown, and Sansa nods back. "Ask Ser Jaime to come please," she says firmly. "As a matter of urgency."

Her mother's hand flounders against the sheets and Sansa catches it between her own.

"It's alright mother," she says firmly. "We're going to find Arya."

Catelyn manages to lift her hand to her daughter's cheek before relief and weariness engulf her and she sinks into the pillows. For the first night in over a week, she sleeps soundly through the night.

:::

The maester still dismisses the lady's murmuring as delirium, but Sansa and the septas know better. Every day they report the progress of the search for the wild girl, and every day Lady Catelyn seems a little stronger, with a little more life in her eyes and colour in her cheeks. Even the maester must admit that the stories are doing Lady Lannister good, although why Lord Tywin and Ser Jaime have half the Lannister guardsmen patrolling the streets on the say-so of a feverish woman's folly is beyond him.

On the third day of the search, Catelyn finally musters the courage to ask about the babe. After Robb and Bran and Rickon she cannot bear the thought of losing another child so she has kept quiet until now, too afraid to ask, but as soon as she voices the question Sansa's eyes light up and lay her fears to rest.

"We dared not bring her to you," Sansa explains. "We dared not risk her infection while she is still so small, but she is healthy and strong. She is with a wet nurse on the other side of the keep."

"May I see her?" Catelyn asks, her voice still weak, but the kindly septa next to Sansa shakes her head.

"I'm sorry, my lady. Best not."

Catelyn is expecting the answer, but even so, she is disappointed. Now that she knows the girl is alive she longs to see her. She does not even know what she looks like, she realises, does not know whether she is Tully in looks or Lannister, or both.

"Both," Sansa says with an enigmatic smile. "But I will let you see for yourself when you are well; I will not spoil the surprise."

Though it is frustrating not to know what her own daughter looks like, Catelyn smiles at Sansa's obvious pleasure; the gods knew she deserved a bit of happiness after all that had happened to her.

:::

Her husband comes in the next morning, which is less surprising than the fact that he has not done so already. Theirs is a marriage of political convenience, not affection, but it had been growing more cordial and less strained by the day, even more so when Catelyn announced she was with child. He does not stay long – just enough to witness that she is recovering well, to reassure her of the progress of the search for Arya, and to inform her that he has chosen the name Tylia for their daughter – but this is the marriage they have made for themselves, and Catelyn is, if not content, comfortable in it.

She is less pleased by the choice of name for the child – especially since she is yet to see her, let alone determine if she is more Lannister than Tully – but she supposes their marriage is still fragile enough that the wrong name might threaten the threadbare blanket of peace that has fallen over the North and the Riverlands since their wedding. And their daughter _will_ be a Lannister whether she wills it or not – both by house and by blood – so she may as well bear a Lannister name as well.

Lannister is Catelyn's house too now, and she is the Lady of Casterly Rock and the mother of a Lannister daughter, but she doubts she will ever truly belong amongst the lions.

She drifts off with her mind swirling with lions and trouts, and hair that is both red and gold, and neither, and a faceless child in a crimson cradle.

:::

The fever has broken by morning and her attendants help and bathe and dress before carefully leading her to the window seat overlooking the lower town. Some time before noon she is joined by a kitten – an escapee from King Tommen's last visit to Casterly Rock – which finds its way into the room and curls up on her lap. She runs her fingers across its soft fur and laughs when it decides to play with her long sleeves. She remembers how in one of his ravens Ned had written about Arya's exploits chasing the cats of the Red Keep, and for the first time the pain of thinking about Ned lessens a tiny amount.

The kitten licks her proffered finger with its tiny pink tongue and a thought suddenly strikes Catelyn. She carefully gets to her feet, startling the poor kitten as it slides off her lap to the floor. Sansa and the septa are at her side in an instant.

"I must speak with Lord Tywin," she insists over their concerns. "It is urgent."

The septa and Sansa exchange a brief glance, then Sansa nods. "Very well mother," she says, "we will send for him. But you mustn't exhaust yourself. I'll fetch the maester as well."

It is a while since Sansa has seen such colour in her mother's cheeks and spark in her eyes that it is small wonder she suspects another fever or something. Catelyn submits to the maester's examination impatiently, barely suppressing her sigh of relief when the blustering fool is finished – she really must see about finding someone to replace him; she won't have her daughters treated by a buffoon.

_Her daughters..._

As soon as her husband arrives Catelyn launches into an explanation. She describes the Braavosi 'dancing' master's bizarre assignments of cat-catching that Ned had relayed to her, and then voices her own opinion.

"You will not find her," she says. "Not with guards."

"They are scouring the whole city-" Tywin starts to objects.

"Would he guards know where to look to find a wild cat's hiding place?" she cuts him off. "Especially if the cat didn't _want_ to be found?"

Tywin concedes that they most likely do not.

"Exactly. So let her come to us. Withdraw the guards and let it be known that I look for someone who can catch the cats in the keep. Arya is clever; she will not risk being found by your guards if she thinks they are a threat, but if we leave the way open for her to come to me of her own accord..." She trails off, silently imploring Tywin to understand.

There is a long silence. "You are certain this will work?" he says eventually.

"I know my daughter," Catelyn replies, only a little more confidently than she feels. "I know her far better than she would like to think."

Tywin inclines his head. "Very well," he says, "I will give the order." He stands and makes to leave, pausing at the door to her chamber. "Would you like to see Tylia?"

Catelyn stares at him, stunned. "I-is it safe?" she manages to blurt out.

"Maester Tybris believes so."

In the back of Catelyn's head it registers that perhaps the maester is not so useless after all. She nods her head determinedly.

Tywin almost smiles. "I'll have Jaime take you," he says, and then he is gone and Catelyn must turn away to hide her smile from her step-son when he enters a few minutes later.

A septa suggests a litter or something but Jaime waves her away and offers Lady Catelyn his arm instead. Brienne follows behind them with Sansa, the two of them somehow having managed to strike up a shy conversation about sloe berries of all things, and Catelyn finds herself genuinely pleased for the both of them. Jaime is also amused she thinks, although it is harder to tell when he so often appears to be amused by some private joke or other.

Nevertheless she is glad of his assistance as they get closer to the chamber on the other side of the keep, as each step grows more heavy with anticipation and anxiety than the next. By the time they reach the heavy wooden door she is holding onto Jaime's arm with both hands and her breathing is laboured.

Jaime stops and looks her straight in the eye. "You're doing very well, Lady Catelyn," he says, so low that only she can hear him, and then reaches forward to push the door open.

Her heart skips a beat when they step into the room, and she scarcely notices the people scuttling to their feet to curtsey to Lady Lannister and her entourage. She doesn't even register her own voice thanking the wet nurse and maids for their services, just stares at the cradle in the far corner of the room, positioned under a gauzy curtain of translucent sunny yellow. One by one the room empties of people until only Catelyn, Sansa and the babe remain, with Jaime and Brienne retreating to just outside the door. Sansa loops her arm through her mother's and helps her over to the cradle, and then she too makes as if to leave.

Catelyn tears her eyes away from where her youngest daughter lies sleeping and takes her eldest's hand.

"Will you stay?" she asks softly. Blue eyes meet identical blue eyes and Sansa nods, entwining her hand in her mother's as together they draw back the curtains that shield Tylia Lannister from the eyes of her mother and half-sister.

:::

It is not long after noon when Tywin joins them, and though he stays only a few moments it is enough to observe how tenderly Catelyn strokes the soft down of curls on their daughter's head – neither quite Lannister gold nor Tully red, but a shade of sunset somewhere between the two – and stare entranced into her eyes – a shade of ocean just shy of her blue and his green. Tylia has Tully features otherwise – she looks remarkably like Sansa did at the same age Catelyn tells him before going back to rocking Tylia back to sleep, and he steps out of the room satisfied.

:::

Towards dusk Sansa falls asleep too, her head cushioned against her mother's shoulder and her little finger held captive in her sister's tiny fist. Catelyn strokes the hair off her face, the sunset glinting fire in her Tully locks. She had been truthful when she said Tylia looked like Sansa, especially now that both slept peacefully, but that hadn't been the whole of it. She looked like Robb too, and her babes Bran and Rickon, but she will never tell her lord husband that. Even the new-found contentment in their marriage does not stretch that far.

Catelyn stands slowly and busies herself with finding a blanket to lay over Sansa. Someone muffles a sob behind her and Catelyn turns sharply to see Arya in the doorway. She is barefoot, her ragged clothes covered in mud, and trailing half a tree in her hair, but Catelyn sees none of this. She gasps her daughter's name and runs to sweep her up into her arms. Mother and daughter weep one another's name and it's enough to wake both Sansa and Tylia, and soon all four are locked in an embrace so fierce it could put the magnificent Casterly sunset to shame.

When Jaime Lannister rushes into the room at the startled cries, Lady Catelyn and her daughters do not even notice him. He backs out silently and closes the door, shaking his head with a smile when Brienne asks him if something is amiss.

One by one they fall asleep until only Catelyn remains, unable to tear her transfixed gaze from her daughters, or even to leave them for a moment now they are returned to her safely. She tucks them into bed each in turn: Sansa, a Tully in features and manner, but a true daughter of Winterfell; Arya, a Stark through and through; and Tylia, neither truly Lannister nor Tully, an unknown piece in the game that will follow.

Catelyn smiles fondly.

Oh she'll never be a lion, but perhaps... Perhaps she's a lioness already.


End file.
